She was expelled from the United States, but still thought America would help. She was wrong

By Omar Jimenez and Elizabeth Gonzalez

Panama City (CNN) — She asked to be identified only as “Ambo,” out of fear of being recognized back in her home country.

“Life is very difficult for me,” she told CNN from a school-turned-shelter on a humidly hot day in Panama City, Panama.

Over the ambient noise of blade fans attempting to cool the large room, she explained she left her native country of Cameroon due to “political issues,” fearing that she would either be “sentenced dead” or spend the rest of her life in prison if she stayed.

She remembers arriving at the US-Mexico border on January 23 – three days after US President Trump’s inauguration – after trekking through Central America and the dangerous Darién jungle.

She turned herself in to United States Customs and Border Protection in hopes of making her case for asylum. By her count she spent 19 days in US custody, then finally got that chance – or so she thought.

Just after midnight on February 13, by her recollection, she and other migrants were loaded onto a bus where they drove for hours.

“We were so happy thinking that they were going to transfer us to a camp where we are going to meet an immigration officer,” she recalled.

She still thought that when she was loaded onto a plane, believing they were headed to another facility in the United States. But when they landed, they were in Panama.

“We’re asking them why are they bringing us to Panama? ‘Why are we in Panama?’” she said, “People started crying.”

Even still, she was optimistic.

“We’re like thinking maybe the camp in the US is full. That is why they are bringing us here. When it will be our turn, they will come and take us to give us a listening ear,” she said.

But the Panamanian government took them to a hotel in Panama City, guarded tightly by security, no phones, and limited access to the outside world, according to multiple migrants CNN spoke to. Panama’s Security Minister Frank Ábrego previously told a local radio program the deportees were held at the hotel, in part, because officials needed to “effectively verify who these people are who are arriving in our country.”

Even in a new country, under a new government authority, she held out hope someone from the United States government would step in and fix the situation.

“We were somehow happy that maybe the immigration from the US would come to Panama to listen to our stories,” she told CNN, now fighting back tears.

“It wasn’t the case.” Her voice cracked, recalling the moment her optimism shattered.

‘Everyone is in a bad situation’

This is the downstream reality of an increased immigration crackdown in the United States, which the Trump administration has pressured Latin American countries like Panama, Costa Rica, and El Salvador to help with.

Just days before she arrived at the border, Trump had signed an executive order effectively shutting down the US-Mexico border to migrants seeking asylum in the United States. Weeks later, the Panamanian government agreed to receive some of those migrants, at least temporarily, and took in nearly 300.

Many are asylum-seekers from places like Iran, Afghanistan, Russia, China, Sri Lanka. They are now are caught in limbo – expelled from the United States, but unable to go back to their home countries out of fear of being persecuted or killed.

“They shouldn’t just like abandon us like that without telling us what we have done wrong. It become very, very difficult and confusing to us. I’ve left my children back home,” Ambo said through tears.

Another woman from Ethiopia, was on a similar flight. She too requested not to use her name for fear of retaliation in her home country.

“I am so shocked. I’m saying this is Texas or Panama?” she recalled.

She told CNN she too had trekked through Central America, injuring her leg in the Darién jungle, to reach the US-Mexico border. She said she too had left Ethiopia due to political issues and feared returning.

“I don’t have family. They died already,” she told CNN.

And a fellow asylum-seeker migrant Afghanistan, who did not want to share his identity, told CNN en Español’s Elizabeth Gonzalez that if he were to return to Afghanistan, he would be killed by the Taliban.

They all now live in a humble shelter, one of multiple places in Panama where these migrants are trying to navigate life, in a country where they don’t speak the language.

“Almost all of us are from different countries, but here we are like family, you know?” said the woman from Ethiopia.

As she sat with CNN, mattresses on the floor lining the edges of the room, she said, “We are together. Everyone is in distress. Everyone is in a bad situation.”

“Are you going to kill us?”

Days after they were initially brought to a Panamanian hotel, the migrants were loaded onto buses again. They expected to be moved to another hotel, Ambo says.

But the drive stretched on for hours, until they arrived at a facility over a hundred miles outside of Panama City on the outskirts of the Darién jungle near the border with Colombia.

“Are you going to kill us? Why are you bringing us here?” she recalled asking in fear, “Bringing us in this place, a forest. What is going to happen to us?”

Artemis Ghasemzadeh, an English teacher from Iran, remembers crying after being expelled from the United States on her February birthday.

“I changed my religion in Iran and the punishment of that is may be a long prison or at the end is death,” she told CNN. “They took two of my friends from the underground church, so I understand it’s time to go. The next is me,” she added.

In February she was seen in a window of the migrant hotel with the words “Help Us” written across the window.

Days later she was at this Panamanian jungle camp, known as the San Vicente shelter, with over 100 other migrants who were in the same situation as hers.

“The food was really disgusting,” said Ghasemzadeh. “The bathroom was really dirty, no privacy, no door,” she added.

Salam said the water for bathing was not clean, causing hives to break out on her skin. She pulled up a pant leg to show the marks on her skin. “All my body is like this,” she said.

Panama’s President José Raúl Mulino has repeatedly denied that authorities have violated the deportees’ rights. Reached for comment about conditions at the camp, a spokesperson from the Panamanian Security Minister’s office deferred to the International Office for Migration (IOM), which assists migrants.

A spokesperson at IOM stressed, however, that handling the deportees is a “government-led operation,” telling CNN “we did not have direct involvement in the detention or restriction of movement of individuals.”

Through every step of the way, attorneys for these migrants argue their rights were violated.

“Our claim is that America violated the right to seek asylum and by extension, by receiving them, the Panamanian government did the same thing,” said Silvia Serna Román, regional litigator for Mexico and Central America for the Global Strategic Litigation Council. “Even though they all claim to be to be asylum seekers, they have never had their right to be heard,” she added.

Serna Román is part of a group of international lawyers that filed a lawsuit against Panama on these alleged violations in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Ian Kysel, who is also part of that group, has previously said they are exploring a range of further legal actions, including against US-specific entities and other countries that might be taking in deported or expelled US migrants.

Panama has denied any wrongdoing in this saga.

In early March, the Panamanian government released the over 100 migrants from the remote jungle camp, but gave them 30-day “humanitarian” permits, extendable up to 90 days, to find another place to go or risk deportation from Panama.

“We’re also trying to navigate the terms of those permits,” Serna Román explained. “If they’re only given 90 days and the 90 days come up then they might be forcibly removed and they might be like involuntarily be taken back to their countries and that’s our concern,” she added.

‘If I come back to my country, my government will kill me’

All the migrants CNN and CNN en Español spoke to said going back to their countries simply was not an option.

“Asylum means I’m not safe in my country, I need help. Just that. I’m not criminal. I’m educated person and just need help,” Ghasemzadeh explained.

“If I come back to my country, my government will kill me, so in Panama they are free to kill me,” she added.

Aurelio Martinez, a spokesperson in Panama’s security ministry, told CNN that after the 90-day period it would be studied whether to grant another extension or if their status would become illegal.

When CNN pressed on whether that could trigger forcible repatriation, Martinez simply said they will review each case individually, that Panama always supports migrants and human rights, and that they intend to maintain that support and commitment.

Ambo, her life now in a demoralizing standstill, still dreams about the United States, even though she has no idea when this nightmare will end.

“America has always been a country that received people from all over the whole world. I believe that is why many people are going towards the USA for to seek for asylum,” she said.

“They should listen to us and see if they can permit us to stay or not because when you don’t listen to somebody, it means that human rights does not exist again in America.”

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